


Peta Pan

by junistsantiago



Category: Peter Pan & Related Fandoms, Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-10 20:42:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20534300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junistsantiago/pseuds/junistsantiago
Summary: Wendell Darling is asked to return to Singapore with his sisters to visit his dying grandmother, but in doing so, he is forced to face what lurks in the shadows of his past. As tensions rise, Wendell and his sisters, Joanna and Michelle, find themselves trapped in Neverland with no way to get home. There are enemies around every corner, including the infamous Lost Girl, Peta Pan, and her group of ragtag Boys.





	1. I Got This For You, Wendy

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: This is a modern-day reimagining of Peter Pan with aged-up characters. The four primary roles have been gender-reversed, with Peter, John, and Michael imagined as women, and Wendy imagined as a man. The Piccaninny tribe has been altered to positively represent an existing tribe, the Croatans, who are often discussed in reference to the disappearance of colonists in North Carolina in the late 1500s.

The Neverwood buzzed with excitement. 

All through the treetops, colorful birds cocked their heads and watched the hubbub, unblinkingly. It was a veritable circus.

Beasts of all shapes and sizes snarled and prowled with carefully placed paws and tails, knowing somewhere ahead of them were Indians with their backs to them—at last!—and never realizing what they themselves had their backs to.

Croatans crept slowly through the tall grass with their bows drawn and spears extended, knowing somewhere ahead of them were pirates with their backs to them—at last!—and never realizing what they themselves had their backs to.

Rowdy pirates stomped through flowers and trampled delicate ivy, swords drawn and glinting in the dying sunlight, pistols still smoking from excited misfires which left bullets lodged deep in the wood of Never trees, knowing somewhere ahead of them were the Lost Boys with their backs to them—at last!—and never realizing what they themselves had their backs to.

The Lost Boys ran ahead of them all, leaping over gnarled tree roots, hooting and hollering and leaving a proverbial trail of breadcrumbs for the pirates to follow. To them, this was fun, this was a game, this was how to pass the time. They clutched their slingshots and their rocks and their tomahawks stolen from the Croatans, and they whooped and cartwheeled and tumbled, knowing somewhere ahead of them were all those wild beasts with their backs to them and fully realizing what they themselves had their backs to. 

And leading the charge, the loudest laugher of them all—the hootingest, the holleringest—the whooping, cartwheeling, tumbling Lost Girl herself—Peta Pan.

-•-

“What are you doing?”

The question sounded innocent, but Joanna knew her brother better than that. 

“Wendell _ Darling_,” she said, pausing purposefully between her brother’s first and last names, dragging the surname out with emphasis so it sounded like maybe, just maybe, she was calling him ‘darling’ and not full-naming him.

“Jo _ Darling_,” he replied, in much the same way.

“Oh, now we just need Michelle to feel left out and ‘Michelle _ Darling_’ herself.” Joanna stifled a chuckle and shoved another swimsuit into a crevice of her suitcase.

“Why are you bothering with those?” 

“I don’t know if you’ve forgotten,” Joanna said, “but Singapore has plenty of lovely beaches.” 

“Oh, right. Singapore.” Wendell tossed himself onto Joanna’s bed, tipping a pile of carefully folded tees and knocking her suitcase.

“Wendy, please!” Joanna tutted at him and caught the pile before it succumbed to gravity entirely. “I’m trying to pack, don’t make this difficult for me.”

“I don’t understand why you’re going.” Wendell laid his arm across his eyes. It would be easier to tell Joanna he wasn’t going if he didn’t have to look at her when he did.

“The same reason you’re going,” Joanna said, all matter-of-fact. “Grandmother is on her deathbed—” 

“She’s been on her deathbed for the last fifteen years.” 

“—and she wants to see us,” Joanna continued, ignoring Wendell’s interruption like she always did, “and I don’t want to spend my whole life regretting not going when she needed us. Us. Do you hear me? All of us. _ All_.”

“I hear you,” Wendell said, but he didn’t move his arm. He said nothing else, listening instead to the sounds of Joanna shuffling items around in her suitcase and mumbling under her breath about reaching the weight limit. Then: “Well, anyway, I’m not going.”

As if expecting it, Joanna snapped, “_All of us._”

“I’m not going,” Wendell repeated.

“Oh, well! Since you’ve said it twice!”

The two remained locked in a stony silence that lasted until Joanna snapped shut the top of her suitcase and attempted to zip it closed. “A hand, please?” Wendell sat up and leaned on the top of the suitcase while she pulled the zipper smoothly around and heaved it off the bed. “There, all set. Do you need help packing? I’ve suddenly found it within my very large heart to help my dear, darling brother.”

“I don’t need your help because I’m not going.” Wendell slid off the bed and fixed the collar of his shirt, straightened his hem. Joanna smacked the back of his head hard enough to make him feel his eyeballs might fly out of their sockets. “Ow!”

“You’re going, you abominable twerp.”

“She hates me,” Wendell said, taking steps away from his younger sister so she wouldn’t hit him again. “She doesn’t want me there. When she said ‘all of you’, she meant you and Michelle and didn’t mean to include me. She’s senile. It’s possible she’s entirely forgotten about me, like she usually does when she mails out cards.”

“That was _ one _ time,” Joanna said. “Honestly, you’re a grown man, and you’re still afraid of an old Asian lady.”

“There’s an entire sub-genre of film built on being afraid of Asian ladies,” Wendell muttered. “I’m not afraid of her. I just don’t think I need to go and say some teary goodbye to someone who doesn’t care about me.”

“Who said she doesn’t care?” 

This question bothered Wendell, just like it did every other time. Who said she doesn’t care? Who said she’s mean? Who said she would rather us not have been born? Who said, who said, who said? _ Well, no one said it, _ Wendell thought. _ No one ever needed to say it. _

His grandmother, Singapore-born and raised and never left, had lived through hell. He knew that. In order to survive, she had to become hard. He wondered if the ladies she played Mahjong with on Tuesdays had similar excuses. _ In order to survive. _ He had grown to think of it as just that: an excuse. Was it _ in order to survive _ when she was beating his mother with a cane? Was it _ in order to survive _ when she turned that same cane on him?

Joanna didn’t know. How could she know? _ How could she not? _ The little voice needled into his core, and he knew he was about to begin an argument with himself. He had been thirteen when IT had happened. Joanna had been eight, and Michelle only four. Michelle certainly didn’t know. She only heard the stories, passed around afterwards at birthday parties among the adults or at his parents’ prestigious university gatherings, when Michelle shouldn’t have been awake or in the room but couldn’t resist the call of tiny hors d'oeuvres. In her mind, Wendell knew IT was more like a folktale or a myth than anything rooted in reality, a scary time she lived through but the memories of which were hazy.

But Joanna was old enough. Joanna was smart. Joanna could’ve filled in the gaps if she really tried, but Wendell suspected she had put a wall around IT, blocked IT out and bottled IT, shoved IT deep into the center of herself where she didn’t have to look at IT or touch IT ever again.

Wendell’s final visit to Singapore to see his grandmother had occurred the summer of his thirteenth year. Nearly twenty years had gone by since, and he preferred to think of Singapore as nothing more than a smudge on a map. Certainly not the place of his ancestry. Certainly not the island that had cradled his mother in its gentle arms until things turned cruel and pushed her towards England. Certainly not a place to which he was interested in returning. 

Through all those summers afterwards, his sisters had returned smiling and sun-kissed, suitcases laden with souvenirs and trinkets, and every time little Joanna or even littler Michelle would try to bestow carefully chosen gifts upon their Wendell _ Darling _, he would reject them and try to ignore the hurt glistening in their eyes. _ But we got this for you, Wendy, _ they would say, and it was the hardest of all to say no to Michelle, whose shoulders would slump and whose head would hang as big, fat tears welled up in her eyes. _ But I got this for you, Wendy. _

Wendell had spent so much of his life trying to make those moments up to Michelle. 

And now Joanna was asking him to do the impossible. To go to this place he’d spent the majority of his life ignoring, running from, erasing.

“I know it’s hard,” Joanna said, laying her hand on Wendell’s arm. “Maybe this is a chance, Wendy. Maybe this is your chance to finally talk about it.”

IT.

_ No. _ He’d spent plenty of time afterwards talking about IT, plenty of time on overstuffed couches, in and out of children’s hospitals, until IT was exhausted out of him and he couldn’t even remember the specific events leading up to IT, just the cane and the fear and the fear and the fear.

“I’m not going, Joanna.”

“Did you seriously just say you’re not going?!” The new, third voice belonged to his spirited younger sister, Michelle, who had been looking forward to this trip for weeks, despite how it should’ve been a solemn affair. 

“I've made up my mind,” Wendell said, shrugging away from Joanna and moving towards the door now occupied by Michelle, who was the baby but grew taller than Joanna in secondary school. _ Dad’s genes_, she would say, as a way to placate Joanna, who hated being the shortest.

“Alright,” Michelle said, and Wendell had been expecting more of a fight. “Doesn’t matter.”

“What’s in the bag?” Joanna asked, and Michelle opened a department store bag and passed Joanna a Ravenclaw luggage tag. 

“Hufflepuff for me,” Michelle said, “and Gryffindor.” She held the luggage tag out for Wendell to take, and suddenly Wendell realized this was a coup and his sisters had known all along that he would back out of the trip at the last minute. “I got this for you, Wendy.”

-•-

That was how Wendell found himself on a sixteen-hour flight from London to Singapore with a stopover in Dubai. It didn’t matter if Michelle had been considerate enough to make sure he had a seat with above average legroom. It didn’t matter if the flight had been inexpensive. It didn’t matter if his mother had foot the bill, so the expense of it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. His mother, who was suspiciously absent from the trip and who presumably didn’t receive an ‘all of us’ guilt trip. 

He read and slept in shifts, the sleep never lasting more than twenty minutes when some turbulence or the cry of a child or simple anxiety would drag him out of it. When he closed his eyes, he imagined the most ridiculous scenario: his grandmother rising out of her hospital bed to greet him with a cane. 

His brain grappled with IT until they came to a bumpy landing in Dubai. He couldn’t avoid it any longer, this thing brought front and center and looming, like a swirl of impenetrable mist. He was trying to tell himself there was a reason for that. _ Don’t go in there! _ he shouted at himself, but he was naturally gravitating towards IT, the questions growing more insistent as the three Darlings dragged on, groggy and rumpled from the first leg of their journey.

Wendell had found a table for two in the middle of a busy food court and Joanna had dragged a chair over from a nearby table. As people swirled around them and jostled the bags hanging from the backs of their chairs, Wendell picked idly at something claiming to be lunch. His internal clock was set for breakfast, and what time was it actually, anyway? 

“I didn’t get any sleep on that flight,” Joanna said through a yawn. 

“Dad always says plane sleep doesn’t count, anyway,” Michelle said. As if she had never eaten in her life, she had practically inhaled two sandwiches and was now sucking down a large iced coffee. Wendell watched the line of creamy liquid get lower and lower until the cup was practically all ice, his mind a swirl.

“Why did she get mad at me?” Wendell asked, and the two girls perked up, looking around for the woman who was about to rip into their brother for some offense. 

“Who wouldn’t get mad at you? You’re insufferable,” Joanna said, eyes scanning and finding nothing. “What are you talking about?”

“Grandmother,” Wendell said, carefully. “Why did she get mad at me?”

Michelle busied herself looking through her purse for chapstick, and Joanna’s gaze somehow turned soft and hard at once. “You really don’t remember? God, Wendy… but you must’ve talked about it a hundred times.”

Wendell snorted. “You severely underestimate the work ethic of our psychiatric community. If I didn’t talk within the first five minutes, they gave up.”

“All those sessions…” Michelle said, not knowing what she was saying. She had only heard from other people. She remembered, vaguely, that Wendell always had appointments, but she was busy with other things: dandelions and jump rope and cootie shots. 

“Be quiet, Michelle,” Joanna said, and Wendell felt a pang of guilt at the look of hurt that flashed across his youngest sister’s face. Had she grown up that way, always being told to hush and mind her own business, always being told she didn’t know what she was talking about? “But, yeah, all those sessions?”

“All those sessions,” Wendell said.

Silence settled over the table as each Darling child felt the weight of this confirmation differently. 

For Wendell, it was an admission of some sort of guilt. ‘All those sessions’ equaled all that time wasted, all that money wasted, and nothing to show for it.

For Joanna, it was the realization that her brother had never fully come to terms with IT and now they were quite literally hurtling towards IT at eight hundred kilometers per hour, and maybe that was her fault for pushing him towards IT before he was ready (_but it's been twenty years!_), which meant if he had a breakdown in Singapore, the blame would lay squarely on her shoulders. 

For Michelle, it was confirmation that her brother had this whole other person inside of him he never showed and never would show, especially not to her.

“They’re calling our flight,” Joanna said, extending a finger to the ceiling, where a woman announced in twelve different languages their flight was boarding. Joanna understood three of those languages, which meant she was triple right, so the Darling children quickly packed up their belongings and disposed of their trash.

“Seriously, though,” Wendell said, as they fell in quick step together down the concourse. “What did I do to make her so mad?”

A muscle in Joanna’s jaw was working overtime. “You took a thimble out of her sewing kit.”

It was enough to stop Wendell in his tracks. A thimble? A thimble had caused IT? 

Joanna looked back at him, agitated, and Wendell mistook the look for something it wasn’t. He mistook it for frustration that he wouldn’t leave it alone. That he was spoiling her trip.

What it really meant was Joanna was old enough, Joanna was smart, and Joanna had filled in the gaps.


	2. You're Not Dying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wendell and his sisters arrive in Singapore. Wendell begins to recall bits and pieces of what happened that fateful summer when he was thirteen.

Wendell remembered a time when being in Singapore meant adventure and excitement. He didn’t like to think about it, but there it was in his memory, ready to pluck out and replay on the widescreen of his mind.

He remembered being stung by a jellyfish on the beach. His grandfather came to the rescue and knew just what to do. He remembered his grandfather’s funeral and didn’t understand how a man who could so bravely tackle an issue as big and scary as jellyfish could be taken by something as common as cardiac arrest. He remembered the way his mother shied away from his grandmother anytime she drew near, how it was his father who had peeled his sisters away from their grandmother’s dress when it was time to leave. He couldn’t remember his mother and grandmother having exchanged a single word.

He remembered Tuesday afternoons the following summer, sweating and bored while his grandmother played Mahjong and talked rapidly in a language he didn’t understand. He remembered the way she swatted at him when he asked what she was saying and told him he would be so much better off if he learned Mandarin. He remembered trying to learn and butchering it and the way she cackled in response, not in the pleasant way adults often laugh at children when they do something cute on accident, but in a mean, hateful way. 

Maybe that was the start of IT.  
  
He remembered his first kiss with a girl named Emily that same summer, the bliss of it. He remembered how it felt the first time she took off her shirt, how warm and soft her freckled skin was underneath his clumsy hands, the way the light made it seem like a halo wrapped around her, and how his legs ached after he ran away as fast as he could when her mother caught them. He remembered apologizing later and eating her ice cream because it was melting and she was crying too much to eat it herself.  
He remembered his friends, the ones he would invite for soccer or swap trading cards with on his grandmother’s front porch. He always looked forward to seeing them during the summer and wondered if any of them still lived in the neighborhood.  
But, he realized with frustrating shock, that would mean going to the old neighborhood, seeing his grandmother’s house. Thinking about her white porch with its peeling paint made him think about IT. Made him think about a cane lifted high in the air.

Joanna and Michelle were staying in that house. Their rooms were unchanged and they were eager to revisit those years, so Wendell was forced to find last minute lodging in a hotel far enough away so he wouldn’t be tempted to wander over there but close enough not to be inconvenient for his sisters.

“It’s only for a week,” Joanna said, but her expression was grim and her mood cloudy. It had been that way since they boarded their second flight in Dubai, and Wendell expected it would lift after she’d slept most of the way to Singapore. It hadn’t.

When Wendell insisted on staying elsewhere, the girls didn’t argue. But Michelle didn’t try to book a hotel room for him, either. The message was clear: _ If you’re going to be difficult, be difficult on your own _.

That first night in Singapore, with his internal clock screwed beyond recognition, parts of IT returned to him as he fell through the layers of space-time that lingered between awake and asleep. The cane, silhouetted against the porch light. The sounds. Flickering lights.

He jolted awake, body rigid and covered in a thin layer of sweat. His legs were tangled in the sheets, and there was a faint light outside, indicating morning had come calling, although it seemed like the sun had just set. 

He didn’t feel rested at all.

-•-

“I don’t want to be seeker again, Jo!” Michelle’s face screwed up, angry and red, and her lower lip stuck out, plump and shiny. She was about to throw a fit. Joanna had forced Michelle to be seeker three times in a row all so she could jump out and scare her baby sister when Michelle was close to finding her.

“Why don’t you be seeker this time, Jo?” Wendell suggested. “Give Michelle a break.”

Jo rolled her eyes. “Fine. Whatever. Ready or not, here I come.”

“You have to give us a chance to hide!” Michelle said.

Joanna grinned. “It says _ ready or not _. Guess you weren’t ready. So, ha, I found you both! Your turn to be seeker again, Michelle.”

Michelle whirled to face Wendell, her eyes teary and her mouth open in protest. Wendell interrupted before she could utter the first sound.

“No,” he said. “Joanna, you know that’s unfair. If we’re playing, we might as well play right. It’s your turn to be seeker, and no one is going to jump out and scare anyone anymore, either.”

“That takes all the fun out of it,” Joanna said. She crossed her arms, narrowed her eyes, and thrust one skinny hip out in cool opposition.

“Alright. Michelle and I won’t play. We can finish that puzzle we started earlier.” He extended an arm and drew Michelle to his side. She went willingly, thumb stuffed in her mouth as silent tears rolled down her pale cheeks.

Joanna’s mouth twitched. She didn’t like not being in charge. Wendell and Michelle made it to the end of the hallway before Joanna called, “Wait!” 

Wendell turned around, eyebrows raised. Waiting.

“Fine,” Joanna said, annoyed. “One more round, I’ll be seeker. But if I find both of you, I get to choose what we do next.” 

“You’ve been choosing all day,” Michelle said, voice a nearly incomprehensible whine.

“It’s fine,” Wendell said. “That’s fair. Winner gets to choose. But you have to find both of us within twenty minutes.” Wendell set his watch and took it off, adjusting the strap to its tightest setting around Joanna’s wrist. It still hung loose, but he didn’t think it would fall off. “Twenty minutes. Don’t cheat.”

“I would never,” Joanna said, and Wendell and Michelle both knew that was more or less true. She turned around and began counting: “Ten… nine… eight…” 

Michelle took off running and giggling, frustration forgotten as she clambered up the stairs and gave away her every movement as the floorboards creaked overhead. Wendell crossed the hallway and slammed the kitchen door, then doubled back the other way. He had to find a really good hiding place, the _ best _ hiding place, and he had to do it in the next few seconds.

“Seven… six…” 

He and his sisters played hide and seek ad nauseum. All of the good hiding places in the house had already been discovered. The _ best _ hiding place was the bottom of their grandmother’s closet behind all of the coats and shoeboxes, but Michelle was the only one little enough to get in there quickly—and besides, they got in trouble last time for making a mess in her closet. Grandmother’s room was labeled OFF LIMITSafter that, just like the kitchen when she was cooking, or the living room when she was watching her shows or knitting. There was nowhere to hide in the bathroom, and he couldn’t hide under the beds in their rooms. It was the first place Joanna would look.

“Five… four… three….”

Anywhere outside was off limits after Joanna got stuck in a tree and their neighbor had to fetch her down. Back home, the attic was off limits as per mom and dad’s rules, because it was dark and dangerous and therefore perfect for hiding, and grown-ups always ruin the fun. But Grandmother’s house didn’t have an attic anyway.

There was his grandfather’s study, but that was OFF LIMITS when he had been alive because his work was important and not to be messed with, and now that he was dead, it was DOUBLE OFF LIMITS. 

“Two… one…”

He crept around the other side of the stairwell and crouched in the corner, trying to make himself as flat as a pancake.

“Ready or not, here I come!”

Joanna made a beeline for the stairs and took them two at a time, rushing upstairs to check under their beds and in the closet, like she always did. Same old formula. Wendell was always able to extend the game by staying downstairs and using that time to scout out a better hiding spot in whatever room his grandmother wasn’t. Today he was going to use that time to try and pick the lock on his grandfather’s office door. He’d seen people do it on TV. How hard could it be?

But the door was unlocked. This room they were never allowed to go into had been open all along.

-•-

The hospital was the last place Wendell wanted to go, but he knew he couldn’t try to skip out on the entire trip and then sequester himself in the hotel. When he met Michelle and Joanna in the lobby, Joanna was still in her mood, but Michelle was happy as ever.

“She found a Starbucks,” Joanna grumbled, not removing her sunglasses. 

“Jo forgot her sleep mask back home,” Michelle said around the straw, and Joanna grunted something that maybe was an agreement but was likely unpleasant. Both of the other Darlings in the elevator ignored it. Michelle was eyeballing her phone as the numbers ticked up, up, up, and Wendell was trying to ignore the feeling of impending doom in the pit of his stomach.

“Are you talking to that guy?” he asked.

Michelle nodded. “He said he might come back to London this summer when he has some time off.” 

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Joanna said, pushing off against the wall as the elevator doors opened. “Come on, gang. We’re expected!”

Wendell considered letting the doors slide shut after Michelle stepped off the elevator. He could pick a floor, any floor. Hide in a stairwell. Hide in an empty room. Somewhere in this hospital was the_ best _hiding place, and suddenly, it felt like there was no air left in the elevator.

They hadn’t played hide and seek since that day, and the memory slammed into Wendell in all its full technicolor. ITwas never just about a thimble. That was only half of it.

“Wen, are you okay?” Michelle asked, looking up from her phone long enough to realize her brother was going into something akin to anaphylactic shock. “Oh, God, Wendell! Can you breathe?” 

The elevator doors started to slide shut and popped back open with a pleasant ding as Michelle shoved herself through the narrow opening. They tried to close again but couldn’t; her oversized purse was in the way.

Wendell slid down the elevator wall and crumpled into the floor, struggling to match his breathing to his heart rate. He pulled the collar of his starched shirt away from his throat in desperation. “I’m dying.”

“Was there a bee?” Michelle turned his head left and right, searching his face and neck for signs of a sting. Wendell didn’t have time to remind her it was their father who was allergic to bees and, having never been stung himself, he didn’t know if he’d inherited that particular twist in his DNA. He didn’t even know if allergies _ could _ be inherited.

He managed to shake his head.

“I’m,” he said, each word punctuated with a panicked gasp, “having—a—heart—attack.”

“You’re not having a heart attack,” Joanna said, stepping over Michelle and kneeling on the floor beside Wendell. Vaguely, he knew how silly this must look: the elevator doors slipping shut and _ ding _ing open in intervals, a man well over six feet on the floor while his younger, smaller sisters flitted around him like nervous butterflies. 

Then again, it was a hospital. Maybe this was the norm.

“Just breathe,” Michelle said.

Joanna nodded. “Like this.” She inhaled, audible and dramatic, and exhaled slowly. “Just like that. With me.” She repeated the action and Michelle joined in. Wendell tried, but the first deep breath was a struggle. He exhaled too quickly and it left his head spinning.

“Go get a doctor.” Joanna watched as Michelle stood up and scurried down the hallway, shouting for help, her purse still a block in the elevator doors. “I knew you would have a damn breakdown. God, Wendy, I knew you would.”

-•-

He nearly screamed when he opened the door. He had come face-to-face with a ghost. He clapped his hand over his mouth cartoonishly, but his eyes quickly righted themselves. They were just sheets in the darkness, draped over everything to keep the furniture and boxes dust-free. He slipped into the room, waiting until the door was closed to take deep breaths that would calm his rapidly beating heart.

Turning on the lights in the room would give him away. He stumbled across the floor, arms outstretched like a blind man’s as he tried to feel around for any obstacles, squinting his eyes in the dim light provided by the tiniest sliver in the curtains.

His thigh connected with a sharp edge and he inhaled sharply, biting back a curse. Upstairs, he could hear his sister running around, hear her little sing-songy voice calling for Michelle, teasing her. _ Come out, come out wherever you are! _

He reached the curtains and nudged them open enough to let some more light into the room but not enough to be noticeable from the outside, just in case his grandmother was in the garden. 

He had been inside this room once, when he was much younger. It was before either of his sisters were born, his first time in Singapore when he was three. He remembered it more because his mother had a picture framed in their hallway—he on his grandfather’s lap in his office chair, little baby fingers pressing into the keys of the typewriter—and not because he could actually _ remember _.

His mother missed her father, he knew that. She pored over photo albums with he and his sisters sometimes, especially around the holidays. Pictures from her time in Singapore were always her friends, her cousins, her father. He was a good man. A strong man. A brave man. He had every quality a man should have, Wendell knew that. But not even a good, strong, brave man could stop the train that was his grandmother. Wendell knew that, too. What he didn’t know was how hard his grandfather tried.

He knew his grandfather missed his mother, too. He knew it because he wrote his mother letters and sent cards, which she kept in her sock drawer. She read most frequently the letter he wrote after her wedding, and Wendell knew this because it was never back in its envelope the same way, and sometimes it smelled like her perfume, like she had recently read it and clutched it to her chest.

Wendell didn’t like to imagine his mother as a sad creature, but he knew she was. He knew that.

He knew they loved each other because his mother put everyone on a plane and brought them all to Singapore for the funeral, and she’d never done anything like that before for any reason. Even for summer trips, the Darling children always traveled to Singapore by themselves.

What he didn’t know was why his grandfather let her go away for so long and never tried to bring her back, or why he requested to meet his grandson but not to see her again. Why he insisted on meeting his granddaughter (he never got to meet Michelle) and why he flew Wendell and Joanna out every summer but never invited his own daughter.

Or maybe she was invited and refused to come. Wendell didn’t know.

When he was three, he had come to Singapore with his aunt so he could meet his grandfather. He only stayed for the weekend and then she brought him back to England. He hadn’t returned to Singapore until he was six. He stayed the whole summer because Joanna had made her grand debut, and his mother was having a hard time. His dad made the call, that’s how bad it had been. 

_ Can Wen come and stay for the summer? She’s having a hard time with the baby. She needs some time. _

That had set an expectation. 

Every summer, the Darlings lost their children. The first three times, it was just Wendell, but when Joanna was approaching four and it was determined the combined power of flight attendants and a proud, nine-year-old big brother could help a four-year-old arrive safely on the other side of the world, it was both of them. Eventually, it would have been all three of them.

The summer after their grandfather died, it was all three of them. Even Michelle, who had never met him. 

He didn’t know why.

(And after IThappened, it was his sisters, even still, and he didn’t know why.)

He approached his grandfather’s desk with a kind of reverence. He lifted the corner of the sheet and was disappointed when it wasn’t a typewriter causing the bulge underneath but a sewing machine. He laid the sheet back on itself and twisted the knobs and pushed the buttons.

Upstairs: “A-ha! I found you!”

“Let’s go find Wendy together!”

Michelle had already forgotten if Joanna won she got to pick the next game and was eager to team up against their brother. Wendell smiled to himself and tugged at the drawer on the desk. It was locked—or else, it was jammed. He knew it might make noise that would alert his sisters to his whereabouts, but some compulsion urged him on. He tugged. And tugged. And tugged.

And finally, the drawer sprang free.

It was filled with needles and thread, bobbins and tiny scissors and loose buttons. A spool of pink thread fuzzy with age rolled forward, and he reached to grab it. 

Something flashed past him. A glint of golden light, a shimmer. It whizzed past his hand—he felt it graze his skin—and towards the door. And then it was gone.

Wendell blinked. _ What was that? _ For a moment, the contents of the drawer were abandoned as he moved his hand up and down, trying to recreate the trick of light.

Nothing.

He sighed heavily and shut the drawer, pushing the sheet further back so he could sit down in the old chair. His sisters weren’t going to find him, and he couldn’t come out of the room while they were in the hallway looking for him or he would be caught. He could hear their giggles on the stairs, fading as they went into the kitchen. He had to wait until he heard them go back upstairs.

There was a small wooden box sitting beside the sewing machine. He picked it up and flipped the latch, expecting more bobbins and buttons. It was a collection of porcelain thimbles. One had an embossed rose, and he ran his fingers over it with interest. There was one painted with blue windmills, another with green clovers, one with red farmhouses, and one with a basket of fruit. Yet another with swans, another with flowers. One embossed with samurai. He liked that one. Another seemed to feature a dancing bear.

Wendell had never felt the compulsion to steal, and yet he did in that moment. Without thinking, he pocketed the thimbles with the samurai and dancing bear. What would his grandmother know? This box had been here for months, probably, untouched under this sheet, along with everything else in the room. Now that he knew the door was unlocked, there were infinite possibilities. What else would he find? What answers? And what other small treasures to sneak into his suitcase and take back home to London?

He closed the box and set it back where he found it. Without his watch, he couldn’t tell the time. He began to count. He counted to three hundred and got bored of counting, then figured out the math to determine how many minutes he’d wasted counting to three hundred. He only had to count to three hundred four more times, he figured, before his twenty minutes would be up—but he ought to factor in that he might be counting too quickly to be considered seconds, and he better give himself some extra time and count a fifth time.

The thimbles felt like tiny bombs in his pocket, and yet his hands were itching to explore what else could be found beneath the sheets and in other boxes.

He resisted the urge.

He stood up and tried to make the light do its trick again. It wouldn’t. 

He fixed the sheet on the desk, all of his actions done in ridiculous slow motion to try and eat up more time. He crossed the room and fixed the curtains, just in case. His grandmother was an observant woman, and she might notice if she came inside.

The sun was setting quickly, and he could hear the girls shouting his name in the hallway.

“Wendy, where are you? It’s been over twenty minutes! Come out!”

Wendell was eager to be the victor, to reveal he had found the _best_ hiding place and, for once, wasn’t going to share the secret with his sisters. He waited until he could hear the creaking floorboards upstairs and raced to the door. If only he had been a little quieter. If only he hadn’t been so hasty, maybe he would’ve heard. Maybe he would’ve realized there was still motion in the hallway.

“Oh, there you are!” Joanna called, as soon as the door opened and Wendell was in the doorway. “We looked everywhere for you, and we couldn’t find you. Where were—wait, Wendy, we’re not supposed to go in that room.”

“I know,” Wendell said, closing the door quickly behind him. “I know we’re not. I just needed to find a good hiding place. Looks like I found one.”

Joanna narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, you found one because you cheated.”

“I didn’t cheat,” Wendell said, indignation rising up in his chest.

“Yes, you did,” Joanna said, crossing her arms. “That room is off limits, and you know it.”

Michelle came running down the stairs. “I can’t find him anywhere!”

“He’s here. We lost.” Joanna’s chin was trembling with anger. “We lost because Wendell _ cheated _.”

“I did _ not _ cheat,” Wendell said.

“How did he cheat?” Michelle asked, looking between her two older siblings in confusion.

“He cheated,” Joanna said, her voice rising, “because he went into the room that’s _ off limits _ . Do you know what _ off limits _ means, Wendell? Because _ I _ know what off limits means, and you told me not to cheat, and then _ you _ cheated.”

Joanna was talking so loudly she was nearly screaming, and her face was becoming more blotchy by the second. She was trying to hold back her tears, and Wendell was torn between comforting her and defending himself. 

It never occurred to him he might want to urge her to use an inside voice or talk about this like reasonable children.

“I didn’t fucking cheat,” Wendell shouted, which brought both of his sisters to tears and his grandmother hobbling in from the living room.

“What’s going on?” she said, her face all stern wrinkles and no compassion.

Joanna was blubbering. “Wendell told me not to cheat and then he cheated.” It seemed Joanna’s next words were spoken in slow motion: “He went into the room that’s off limits.”

“Which room?” his grandmother asked, unkindly. Joanna pointed to the door on the other side of the stairs, and Wendell felt his world tip sideways. “I see.”

His grandmother turned her steely gaze on Wendell, and Wendell swallowed the lump in his throat. “I wasn’t thinking. We were just playing a game.”

“Did you find anything interesting while you were in there, boy?”

_ Boy. _As if he didn’t have a name, as if she didn’t know it. She had never called him ‘boy’ when his grandfather had been alive, not once, not even when he had been out of earshot.

“No,” Wendell said, but his trembling voice gave him away.

Joanna had stopped crying and had taken Michelle’s hand in her own.

“What did you find?” His grandmother stepped closer to him, her cane thudding against the hardwood floor.

“Nothing,” Wendell said, but he stuttered.

Joanna backed away, towards the stairs, dragging Michelle with her. The energy in the room had changed, and even an eight-year-old could feel that.

“Wendy,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper, but Wendell didn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry,” he said, maybe to his grandmother and maybe to his sisters. He shouldn’t have cheated, he knew that now. And it _ was _ cheating. He knew that, too.

“Sorry isn’t good enough,” his grandmother said. “What did you find? Show me.”

“Nothing,” Wendell said, trying to make his voice stronger, but his hand had gone to his pocket.

“Show me.” Using her cane, she pointed at his pocket. “Empty them.”

So, Wendell did as he was told. He reached deep into both pockets and gripped the fabric, yanking it out. His intent was to catch the thimbles in his fist and put them back in his pocket after they were outturned, hoping she was too old to notice some sleight of hand. But he was too upset, too frightened; he yanked too hard. The thimbles came flying out of his pocket and landed on the hardwood floor between them, both of them shattering.

Wendell’s face had drained of all color. Both of the girls were very still. The damage was irreparable. Even if they hadn’t been so very small, there would be no fixing them. There were too many fine pieces. 

“Do you have any idea how much those are worth?” His grandmother’s voice was quiet. Stony. Trembling at the edges.

Wendell made a break for the front door, and Joanna screamed. He thought he could move faster than his grandmother. He played soccer almost every day if it wasn’t raining outside, and she was so very old.

She caught up to him on the porch, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him down. He landed on his back, barely able to breathe.

She was a woman with remarkable strength. His grandfather had been strong, too.

He lifted his head to look at her. She was framed by the doorway, the front door open and forgotten, his sisters inside beyond her, gaping on the stairs. Joanna’s mouth was open in a silent scream, or maybe it was an audible scream. His ears were ringing, so he couldn’t tell. His grandmother lifted the cane, silhouetted against the porch light… 

-•-

“It was a panic attack,” the doctor said, flipping the papers on his clipboard and offering a cheery smile.

“A panic attack,” Wendell repeated. It was just Michelle and him in the hospital room, both of them sitting on the edge of a tightly made, uncomfortable bed. Joanna had gone on to their grandmother’s room. After all, they were expected.

“A panic attack,” the doctor said.

“Great,” Wendell said, and Michelle rubbed his back encouragingly.

“At least you’re not dying,” she said. It was supposed to be a consolation, but Wendell shook his head. He wondered if dying might be better. Dying meant he didn’t have to see his grandmother.

“I’ve printed off a list of strategies you might try next time you have one,” the doctor said.

Wendell took the papers. It was an article from WebMD. The words and letters were all swimming together. “Did you google this?”

The doctor chuckled as he left the room. “Even doctors can google!” 

Michelle took the papers from him. “Oh, look. Tip number two: live your life. How helpful.”

“Very,” Wendell agreed.

“Step five: breathe through it. We told you!”

“You did,” Wendell said.

“Step ten: rate your fear on a scale from one to ten.” Michelle turned to him when she didn’t get a response. “Well, do it.”

_ Twenty million_, Wendell thought, but he said, “I don’t know. Two? I’m fine.”

“Yeah. You’re not dying!” Michelle folded the article in half and put it in her purse, likely never to be seen again. “Come on, get up. Let’s go find some food before we go find Joanna.”

“If it’s alright with you, I think I’ll go back to the hotel.”

“What, seriously?”

“Yeah.” Wendell ducked his head. “Tell Joanna I was throwing up or something and they sent me home in a cab.”

“I don’t think she’ll buy that doctors sent you home in a cab when you started puking at the hospital… but whatever you need to do, Wendy. I’ll tell her you weren’t feeling great. She’ll at least buy _ that_. We’re coming back tomorrow, anyway.”

_ Great_. “It isn’t a lie. I’m _ not _feeling great.”

“But you’re not dying,” Michelle said, ever-cheerful, ever-oblivious.

-•-

Twenty years ago, almost to the day, a little light whizzed through the sky above Mermaids’ Lagoon. It was so fast, so faint—it was almost like a shooting star.

That little light went straight to the heart of the Neverwood and into the Home Under the Ground, searching desperately for someone. 

But that someone wasn’t there.

The little light left again, springing through trees so fast it was pulling leaves off of them and startling birds.

Down below, the Lost Boys paused their rumpus and looked up into the branches, which seemed awfully excited for being branches.

“What’s that?” Curly asked. 

“What’s that?” Slightly asked.

“It’s Tink!” one of the Twins said.

“It’s Tink!” said the other, just after the first one had finished.

They all followed her with their fingers, mouths agape.

“Tink is back!” they called, running through the forest, trying to keep up with the fast little light. “Tink is back! Tinker Bell! Tinker Bell! Tink is back!”

Tink finally found what she was looking for, sitting on a rock near Mermaids’ Lagoon with a pair of old binoculars left behind a long, long time ago.

Peta was watching the pirate ship and mumbling to herself.

Tink came chiming up, frantic, all words, tugging Peta’s frizzy auburn curls.

“Good to see you, too!” Peta said, batting Tinker Bell away. “I’m watching the ship. I’m trying not to be obvious. Leave me alone, will you?”

Suddenly, it dawned on Peta, and she turned around in such surprise, she dropped the binoculars in the water and nearly lost herself to it, too.

“Why, Tink!” she said, righting herself. “Where have you been? We’ve been looking for you everywhere! You’ve been gone for… well, forever!”

Tink shook her head so violently, her whole body shook with it, pixie dust falling off of her in waves.

“What do you mean, Tink? There’s a boy? He set you free? We ought to go find him and say thank you, don’t you think?!” Peta hopped up on the rock and crowed, not hearing what Tinker Bell was trying to tell her.

Finally, Tinker Bell left, whizzing away from Peta and back into the clouds, back to that damned desk, back to that damned boy who needed her.


End file.
